Nigel Brinn, Corporate Director Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
(Economy and Environment) /
Cyfarwyddwr Corfforaethol (Yr Information Compliance
Economi a’r Amgylchedd)/
Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall

Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for / Os yn galw
gofynnwch am
 
Information Compliance
 
Tel / Ffôn: 01597 82 7543
 
Email/Llythyru electronig:
  [1][email address]

Our ref / Ein cyf: 2021-0396F

Date / Dyddiad: 12/05/21

Request Accepted

FREEDOM of INFORMATION ACT 2000

Dear Mr Smith

Thank you for your request for information, received at this office on
11/05/21, in which you requested details of the following:

SUBJECT

Subsidised Bus Services in the Local Authority

The above is a summary of your request. The full details of the
information sought is provided to the officer to whom the request is
tasked.

Your request will now be considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, subject
to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party. In some circumstances Powys County Council may be unable to achieve
this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised
time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you choose not to make a payment then your request will
remain unanswered.

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

The due date for responding to this request for information is 09/06/21.

Should you need to discuss this further please contact the Information
Compliance Team on 01597 827543.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Information Compliance Team

We keep your details safe and we have updated our privacy notice in line
with the requirements set out in General Data Protection Regulations. We
will only ever use the details you share with us to enable us to undertake
our statutory obligations. You can find out more by looking on our web
site. [2]https://en.powys.gov.uk/privacy

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References

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1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://en.powys.gov.uk/privacy

Dear Mr Smith

We regret the delay you have experienced with this request, and we
acknowledge that Powys County Council has failed in its obligation under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to provide you with a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days.

We are currently in the process of drawing all the information received
from the service area together, we hope to provide you with a response
soon. Please accept our apologies for this and for any inconvenience this
may have caused.

Yours sincerely

Information Compliance Team

Powys County Council.

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Dear Mr Smith

In reply to your email, we are still in the process of drawing the
information together and gathering the final pieces of data from the
service area for your request.

Please accept our apologies again for this delay and for any inconvenience
this may have caused.

We hope to provide you with a response soon.

Yours sincerely

Information Compliance Team

Powys County Council.

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Dear Mr Smith,

Please accept our apologies again for the delay with your request.

We are still in the process of drawing the information for the response
together and hope to provide you with this soon.

Yours sincerely

Information Compliance Team

Powys County Council.

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Nigel Brinn, Corporate Director Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
(Economy and Environment) /
Cyfarwyddwr Corfforaethol (Yr Information Compliance
Economi a’r Amgylchedd)/
Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall

Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
If calling please ask for / Os yn galw
gofynnwch am

Tel / Ffôn: 01597 82 7543

Email/Llythyru electronig:
[1][email address]

Our ref / Ein cyf: 2021-0396F

Date / Dyddiad: 22/07/2021

Dear Mr Smith

Thank you for your request for information dated 11/05/2021 concerning
subsidised bus services.

This is to inform you that your request has been considered and I can
provide the following response:

Request & Response:

Please can you provide a table listing all services which are fully
subsidised by yourself detailing the route number, where the service runs
from and to, the current operator of the service, the cost of the tender
per annum, the monthly or 4 weekly passenger and revenue numbers for the
past 20 months and the minimum seating capacity as specified in the
tender. – Please see the attached excel document and the pdf document. 
Please note that we have only provide the information for the last 12
months as prior to the start of the financial year 2020/21 the information
was held in a different format and to provide the data requested would be
a time consuming exercise to search for, locate and retrieve the
information for the 8 month period that is missing as such Section 12 of
the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is engaged. However, we can advise
that during the pandemic the Authority continued to honour all subsidised
contracts and as such there was no impact upon the service.

We have not provided the cost of tender per annum as this information is
deemed to be commercially sensitive. Disclosure of information which is
made under the Freedom of Information Act is seen to be a disclosure to
the world at large and not just to the requestor who asks for the
information. Providing the costs of tender would be prejudicial to the
commercial activity of both Powys County Council and the service
providers. This information would be likely to provide competitors with an
unfair advantage and would affect the councils ability to achieve best
value for money with future service providers. It is for these reasons
that we feel that the public interest is best served by withholding this
information from disclosure. As such this information is exempt in line
with Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Can you also please provide a list of all services which are partly
subsidised by yourself. This should state the route number, where it runs
to/from, the reason for funding the service, the cost per annum and if
possible, can you provide monthly or 4 weekly passenger numbers for the
past 20 months. – There are no services which are partly subsidised by
Powys County Council, as such Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 is engaged as this information is not held.

Finally, can you please provide a list of all services which are funded
via Section 106 funding. Can I again have the route number, where the
route runs to/from and also the reason for the funding. If you are to
provide monthly or 4 weekly passenger numbers for the past 20 months, that
would be appreciated. – There are no services that are funded via Section
106 funding, as such Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is
engaged as this information is not held.

Please note that this is information for all services which you (or S106)
have subsidised within the past 20 months and so previous contracts which
are no longer operating, would be included in this.

We regret the delay you have experienced with this request. We acknowledge
that Powys County Council has failed in its obligation under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000, to provide you with a response to your request
within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. Please accept our
apologies for this and for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Under Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act a public authority is
required to inform you

1 (a) whether the information requested is held by the public authority,
and

(b) to have that information communicated if that is the case.

In this case the information requested is not held.

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Powys County
Council, when refusing to provide such information (because the
information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a)  states that fact;

(b)  specifies the exemption in question and

(c)  states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption
applies.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for
public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of
dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, as detailed in the
Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate limit) Regulations 2004.

The limit for public authorities is set at £450 which amounts to a maximum
of 18 hours of search and retrieval time charged at £25.00 per person per
hour.

The Regulations set out what may be taken into account when public
authorities are estimating whether the appropriate limit has been
exceeded. The costs are limited to those that an authority reasonably
expects to incur in:

·         determining whether it holds the information requested

·         locating the information or documents containing the information

·         retrieving such information or documents

·         extracting the information from the document containing it
(including editing or reformatting information)

Section 43: Commercial interests -

(1) Information is exempt information if it constitutes a trade secret.

(2) Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act
would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any
person (including the public authority holding it).

(3) The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that,
compliance with section 1(1) (a) would, or would be likely to, prejudice
the interests mentioned in subsection (2).

In accordance with Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am
unable to provide you with the details you have requested

We believe that this request is now complete and shall be closed
immediately. Should any further information be requested regarding this
topic, a separate request will need to be submitted.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Information Compliance Team

The supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the
person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the
documents in a way that would infringe copyright.

You are free to use any information supplied for your own use, including
for non-commercial research purposes. The information may also be used for
the purposes of news reporting. However, any other type of re-use, for
example, by publishing the information or issuing copies to the public
will require the permission of the copyright owner. The copyright of most
of the information that we provide in response to Freedom of Information
Act requests will be owned by Powys County Council. The copyright in other
information may be owned by another person or organisation, as indicated
in the information itself. For HMSO Guidance Notes on a range of copyright
issues, see the Office of Public Sector Information(OPSI) website:
[2]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...

If you are dissatisfied with the service you have received in relation to
your request and wish to make a complaint, please contact Information
Compliance. Our complaints procedure is available on request or on our
website.

If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an appeal to
the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

2nd floor

Churchill House

Churchill way

Cardiff

CF10 2HH

Tel: 0330 414 6421

Email: [3][email address]

[4]www.ico.org.uk

[5]Footer_banner[1]

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References

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2. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.ico.org.uk/